


Never Thought This Life Was Possible

by Alcoholic_Kangaroo



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Alcohol, Discussion of Abortion, Drug Use, F/M, Prostitution, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:41:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28707576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcoholic_Kangaroo/pseuds/Alcoholic_Kangaroo
Summary: Donald struggles to raise the boys on his own after losing his family and home
Relationships: Della Duck/Donald Duck
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Never Thought This Life Was Possible

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, confession time, this was only supposed to be a one shot. But it was getting a bit long and I know if one shots are too long people get bored so I'm gonna break it up some. I doubt it will go past three chapters.

The day the boys hatched was one tainted with the bitter aura of melancholy.

Donald had spent the momentous morning dozing on a stained, sagging mattress, fading in and out of a foggy haze. The previous night had been one of cheap liquor, excruciating memories, and incessant tears. Finally fading off sometime between the hours of three and four, he had awoken at nearly five-thirty, his stomach rolling, to the sound of the whiskey bottle clattering across the floor. It hadn’t shattered; the fall had been too shallow for such consequence. He had been nearly lying on the floor. No box spring, no headboard, just a single used mattress resting on the dirty floor.

If he were to be perfectly honest with himself, Donald had not slept a full night’s sleep in nearly a week. Not since the day _she_ disappeared. He had barely slept, barely ate. He hadn’t showered since the last time he had seen her, subconsciously fearing that washing the smell of her from his feathers would be like washing her from his life. It was like having the world pulled out from under his feet, leaving him bewildered and in pain, lying sprawled out across the floor. She had been his everything. His beloved sister. His welcoming lover. The adoring mother to his unborn children. His always present other half.

And like that, she was gone.

Nights were the most difficult. He started drinking the moment the sun went down just to try to forget her. No, that wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t trying to forget her. He was trying to forget that she wasn’t there. For as long as he could remember they had always been together at night. They had slept curled up together their entire lives. Hatched from the same egg, they had all but formed within the comforting embrace of each other’s arms.

He couldn’t even say he tossed and turned in his spare few hours of sleep in the wee hours of the morning because that was not true. There was no room for such movement on his meager furniture. He kept the three eggs close to through the night to keep them from catching chill in the apartment that only contained a cheap, fifteen-dollar space heater for warmth. Wrapped up securely in a blanket-nest to protect them from being crushed if he were to turn over in the middle of the night, he slept with one arm strewn across them, his fingers curled protectively around the one furthest from him. They took up so much room on his small, single bed that he was unable to stretch out straight on the mattress, instead sleeping half curved around the nest like he was a crescent moon.

Donald had been semi-conscious in a sleep-deprived fog sometime in the early afternoon when the first little whine came.

It should have been a joyous occasion. They should have been greeted by a small but loving family. There should have been colorful crepe paper and happy but mellow music and camera lenses the color of black coffee glinting in the gentle light to record their first movement into the world. They should have been welcomed into the open arms of their loving mother.

Some families are more spartan with their hatching ceremonies. The rest of the friends and family simply hide away in some other room until the call comes for them to join in the celebration. Others are more elaborate, deploying a clever set up of screens or a maze of sheets hung from the ceiling to obstruct the view of the little one while affording glimpses to any enthusiastic observers. The reason behind these practices is basic biology: ducklings imprint immediately after birth. The first living being they spot is their preferred parent - a mother, usually, sometimes a father, or a grandma or, in this instance, an uncle.

It should have been her.

They deserved a mother, and she deserved to be there for it.

The screens had already been purchased weeks ago for the celebration. Everybody had wanted to be there to witness their emergence. When he had stormed out of Manor less than a week ago, Donald had left the screens behind. They belonged to Uncle Scrooge and Donald did not need his charity. And besides, there had been no need for them. Donald had greeted the boys alone in a dark room in a musty apartment with peeling yellow linoleum on the floor.

It was the best apartment he could find, the only one he could afford, on such short notice. He wasn’t used to living in such squalor. He had been raised in luxury that few ducklings dream of. There had been a sprawling, sumptuous bed in his room at the Manor and a door that attached directly to the room next to his. Her room. They slept in his bed together most nights, she was quicker, more agile. Better at escaping spaces at a moment’s notice. 

That had changed when the eggs had been lain. She had refused to leave them alone in her room and it would have been too inconvenient, even dangerous, to move the entire nest every evening, so Donald went to her instead, and they slept innocently holding each other as they had when they were young. They had no fear of being caught those last few months. They did nothing morally questionable. Though the blood had stopped by the time she had disappeared, she was still healing in the place between her legs. It had been a surprise to them both, how long the healing had been taking this time around. The other time, the first time, it had only been a matter of weeks, but that one had been smaller, probably underdeveloped looking back on it with more experience and knowledge. And there had been only one.

Donald had never pushed her for intimacy in those final days even though he longed for her. She would lay with her head on his chest and he would tenderly stroke her hair, soothing her into slumber, repeating the old fairy tales to her that their mother used to read to them when they were very, very young. Occasionally he would awaken in the middle of the night, his hardon pressed into her thigh, and he would debate in his mind if it was worth getting up to take care of. Most nights he would judge against it, for her warmth and steady breathing against his chest was more satisfying than a fleeting orgasm. If she ever felt it there, against her leg, she never offered to take care of it for him, and he never asked her to.

He would never force himself on her.

The first two ducklings broke through the thin, hard shells within seconds of each other. Not even free of their eggs before their large, babyish heads swiveled on too-skinny necks. Their eyes barely opened, squinting at the dimness of the room. Searching, instinctively. Quiet besides their labored, puffing little breaths. Their tiny orange beaks were still soft from the wetness inside the egg. It would take a few days for them to harden in the dry air. They whimpered when their vision finally centered on the large drake before them. Not quite crying but something desperate coming from their small bodies. He took both of the newly hatched ducklings into his arms, their yellow down damp and sticky, and marveled at how very tiny they were. He shared this wonder with them, kissing their damp little heads, asking them how such small babies ever needed such large eggs.

The third egg sat nestled in the same old quilt it had been wrapped in for days, unmoving, devoid of any outward signs of life. It was not wiggling as the other two had been, no squeaks emerged from within. Donald worried, internally, if all the movement of taking them from the Manor and transporting them to the apartment may have harmed the little life inside it.

When he pressed his free palm against the shell, the other ducklings cradled securely inside the crook of his elbow, the shell was as toasty as a housecat curled up in the sun. He could feel the little one stirring languidly inside. He imagined the boy curled up cozily upon himself, sleeping, yawning, though Donald is fully aware that unhatched ducklings are incapable of such a thing.

“Are you scared to come out of there or are you just too lazy?”

If the third one refused to break open his shell, Donald didn’t know what he would do. He’d heard about the dangers of assisting with the hatching, but he had also heard of the dangers of hatchings gone wrong. He’d probably have to take the egg to the emergency room but how could he afford such a visit? He didn’t even have a job yet. He had been applying to places, but it was going to be difficult with three newborns. And if he did have to go to the hospital, what would he do with the other two in the meantime? He was all on his own.

But he couldn’t risk something happening to the third duckling. They were all he had left of her and losing one of them, even one he hadn’t yet laid an eye upon, would be like losing her all over again. Those three fragile little eggs had been the only thing keeping him from downing an entire bottle of pills and joining her in the only place she had ever gone that he couldn’t follow. 

Donald closed his eyes and breathed very slowly in and out. He concentrated on the little creatures in the crook of his arm. So small, so trusting. So tired from their battle to escape their shells. The parenting books all said this was normal. One or two ducklings are often slower hatching than the others in cases of clutches. Something to do with ones on the outer edge maturing just a tad slower because of the difference in heat distribution.

Slowly, he stroked the third egg, leaning down to whisper against the un-cracked shell. “Take your time, your daddy will be here when you’re ready to come out.”

He gave the other two their first bath in a large pot on the floor only a couple feet from the foot of the bed. He hadn’t planned on doing it there, he had planned on using the bathtub like any normal person, but he couldn’t risk the third hatching without him there to catch him in his arms. The pot was plenty big enough anyway. He bathed them one at a time, rinsing off the sticky residue with a soft cloth and gentle soap. He told the first one his name as he gently sponged him clean and the infant watched him the whole time with large eyes, understanding nothing that he said but looking about as enthralled as any living being had ever looked while listening to Donald speak.

“Your name is Hubert and you’re the oldest brother,” Donald explained as he rinsed the soup from the soft yellow down. “So you’re going to need to help me keep an eye on your brothers.”

Ducklings normally do not walk on their hatching day. The entire ordeal is arduous, and Donald knew they would be exhausted and probably sleep until tomorrow, so he tucked the first one into a tiny, makeshift nest of blankets far from the edge, and gently lowered the second into the water. He was amazed by how alike the two looked. Not identical, of course, they had hatched from separate eggs, unlike he and Della. But they could be the same baby split in two.

“Dewford, I’ll need to find a ribbon or something to tell you apart,” he apologized sadly to his child, knowing how difficult it can be for middle children to get the attention they deserve. “I’m sorry if I end up mixing you up sometimes. I promise I won’t ever mean to do it.”

It’s when he’s washing this duckling that the third hatched. Donald had missed it, so preoccupied with the task at hand, and the newborn had been so slow and quiet about it. Only when his father approached the bed with his older brother swaddled in his blue baby blanket, does he see the latecomer has escaped his confinement, crawling halfway across the short section of the bed that spanned the distance between his shell and his big brother.

Donald felt like crying. He laid down the second born in the little nest beside the first then. Then he reached for the sticky bundle of feathers and beak. The little creature struggled against him in a way the first two had not. Trying to escape his father’s arms. Trying to reach his brother. Donald had missed the baby’s hatching; he had come into the world all but alone. And even more importantly, he was not the first living creature the infant had spotted. Llewelyn has imprinted onto his oldest brother instead.

It had always been the plan for Donald to assist in their upbringing. Not in the casual way an uncle would be expected to help raise his nephews, but in the way a parent would. There had even been talk of potentially moving out of McDuck Manor; lofty ponderings between the more casual discussions on names and clothes and diaper brands. Why not strike out on their own? They were in their mid-twenties, a good age to leave the family nest. Uncle Scrooge had never said anything about wanting them to leave, if anything he had always seemed happy to have them within calling distance, but as long as they lived within the walls of his property they would never have true independence. His house, his rules.

It wasn’t a horrible arrangement, honestly. Free food, nice clothes, a butler to take care of his dirty laundry. Except Donald didn’t want to just be Uncle Donald, he wanted to be the boy’s father. He would never go so far as to request they call him Dad – that would just raise too many questions. But he wanted them to see him as their father. He wanted them to look around their small, comfortable house, and see a reflection of the perfect TV family from an 80s sitcom. A real, nuclear family, all under the roof of a modest, four-bedroom house.

Embarrassingly, Donald could see himself playing such a role. Like one of the opening themes from those TV shows. Returning home every day after a full eight hours at the office. Hanging up his hat as he announced his presence. Kissing his sister, hugging his children, asking how their days were as they inquire the same of his. They’d all sit down to a satisfying homemade meal every evening and maybe they’d watch some gameshow together on the television or play board games on Friday nights. They’d help the children with their homework and read them bedtime stories and go to the park on Sunday mornings for a picnic.

Even when he had been nurturing these daydreams in his head, Donald had known they were ridiculous. If anything, he would probably have been the stay at home parent when the boys were young. Even into his mid-twenties, Donald had been unable to keep a job for more than a couple of months and Della was an accomplished pilot with a steady job that included health insurance and paid vacation. Besides, neither of them knew how to cook and his sister enjoyed adventuring far too much to ever be the gameshow and boardgame type of woman.

But a man can dream, can’t he? And he really didn’t need all those bells and whistles. As long as they were able to share a bed in peace every night, no longer freezing or jumping apart at the barest squeak of a wooden floorboard outside their door, he would have been content.

Donald had craved Della’s physical presence for as long as he could remember. When they were very small there had been two cribs lined up beside each other in a small bedroom with yellow walls. One pink, one blue, close but not quite touching. The first time they were set in these cribs they screamed and screamed until they were lifted from them. Then they had screamed and screamed in their baffled parent’s arms, straining with days old muscles to reach each other. Before long, the blue crib had been given away. They lay together every night within the bars of the pink crib, sleeping soundly. A photograph in Uncle Scrooge’s office showed them curled up together in a shape very reminiscent of an oval and Donald had mused on more than one occasion if that had been the way they had slept in their egg.

Like his youngest son, Donald had imprinted on his sibling rather than their mother. The difference was that she had imprinted on him in return.

Their bodies were never a mystery to each other. They took their baths together, they dressed and undressed in front of each other. They learned to use the potty together. They knew from a very young age they were different in some ways and they took turns touching each other in those areas to figure out how. It hadn’t been sexual, not back then, just curiosity. They were the same. They had come from the same egg. To have something different between them felt wrong and the only way to make it right was to understand what the difference was.

Later, they changed in other ways because there is more difference between boys and girls than what they have between their legs. Della would complain when they went swimming that she was forced to wear a top and Donald was not. So he wore one anyway, even when the other boys teased him about it, asking what he was hiding underneath. When puberty began creeping in, Della had tried to hide her growing breasts, pressing them down with strips of cloth she tore from a ripped-up bedsheet. The cloths made her chest ache and restricted her ability to breathe. Donald discovered what she had done when he caught a glimpse of the wrappings peeking through the back of her nightgown.

When Donald asked her why she broke down into tears.

“I don’t want us to not be the same.”

“We’ll always be the same,” Donald had promised her, pressing the palm of his hand against her lower back. He tried to remember the words he had read in one of Uncle Scrooge’s mythology books as he began to carefully free her from the wrapping. When he caught the sight of the first bruise his voice caught in his throat. “We’re just…complementary, not identical.”

She hadn’t understood what he meant at the time and even Donald had not fully understood the significance of his words. He just knew there was something about male and female that possessed some deeply biological instinct. He just understood there was something about their two bodies that nature had decided just fit together. A couple of years later, when they lost their virginities to each other, he understood it better. He understood the reason they were not the same.

She was different than him so that their bodies could reunite, become one as they had been inside their egg. The first time they joined it was borderline transcendental.

In reality, when they weren’t lost in a world of pleasure and fusion within each other’s arms, it was just incest. They had to be secretive about it, sneaking into the other’s bedroom late at night, sneaking back out before morning. If Uncle Scrooge caught them, well, they couldn’t even imagine the consequences. Disappointment would only be the beginning. They could be separated. Uncle Scrooge might have sent them away. He used to joke about sending Donald to a military school during his grunge stage, would he hold true to that promise? Or would a good old boarding school do?

Either option would kill him. He couldn’t have survived without Della at his side.

The first egg came shortly before they turned sixteen. It was stupid of them. Foolish decisions on their part. They had felt as if the very laws of science hadn’t applied to them. What they had was so magical, so destined, what could possibly go wrong? Then the little bulge appeared in Della’s belly. They told nobody about it and only Donald was there to help her through it. They had agreed ahead of time that Donald would be the one to dispose of it but when the time came, he just couldn’t make himself do it. He kneeled beside her bed, the blood-smeared egg in his arms, and cried against the edge of the mattress.

Della, on shaky legs, still bleeding, took the egg gently from him. She told him everything would be okay, that she would take care of it for the both of them. She had always been the stronger of the two of them.

“The garbage truck will crush it,” she reassured Donald when he panicked at the idea of the egg surviving, somehow, and keeping warm in a pile of trash. He had been having fantasies of the tiny infant hatching in the middle of a dump with nobody there to care for it. “It’s just an egg, like the ones we eat for breakfast, everything will be okay.”

It wasn’t. Not for a long while. They were afraid to touch each other after that. At the same time, they were afraid to be away from each other. She still came to his bed every night without fail, but they slept on opposite edges, their backs turned to each other. Donald fell into a depression so deep that some days just forcing himself to shower felt like being asked to run a marathon. His body felt as if he weighed a thousand pounds. Della, struggling with her own trauma, remained at his side, coaxing food into him, prodding gently at him to change his clothes. Eventually, they began to face each other once more in bed, and one night they reached for each other once more, needing the comfort of each other’s embrace. Della went to the doctor and started on the pill to make sure it didn’t happen again.

But it did. Almost a decade later. This time, Donald begged her not to get rid of it. They weren’t teenagers any longer, he sobbed out his desperation before she even had a chance to say anything else. They were old enough to be parents now. He was ready to be a father. He pleaded with her not to kill their child.

He didn’t have to. She had been planning on informing him, forcefully if needed, that she was keeping this one.

“I’m just going to tell everyone I hooked up with a guy at the bar,” she told him, holding his head against her chest. He was sniffling, face disgusting with tears and snot, but she petted him as if he were a beloved pet. “I’ll tell them I didn’t even get his name. When he hatches, he’ll have both of us to raise him. It’ll be like we have a real family.”

He ended up being they. The initial pregnancy test wouldn’t show something like multiple births, it was a yes or no answer, not a multiple-choice question. The hospital visit did, however.

“I see somebody knows how to hit it out of the park,” the technician teased, noticing how Donald held his sister’s hand throughout the appointment and jumping to conclusions. Correct conclusions, though they would never confirm them.

Later, the doctor came into the office with the ultrasound images and pointed out the three distinct shapes in her womb. Squishy still, the shells not yet formed.

“The bloodwork confirmed they’ll all be boys,” Dr. Suplouse said, tapping his finger against one of the blobs. “That one right there is of concern. He seems a bit underdeveloped compared to the other two. It’s possible he’ll be reabsorbed but we won’t know for a few more days. I’d like to keep you here until you lay.”

“Will you be able to stop such a thing from happening?” Della had asked, her arms already wrapped protectively around her stomach. “If I stay, I mean?”

“No,” the doctor shook his head. “There’s no way to stop that. But you’ll be laying early, I’d bet my degree on it. You’re just a slip of a thing, not much room for three full-grown eggs to hang around for long.”

“With all due respect, I’d rather lay at home,” Della replied, already slipping off the examining table and onto her feet. “I’d feel much more comfortable in the privacy of my own bedroom without a bunch of nurses gawking at me.”

“There could be…complications,” the doctor objected, frowning. “And as a first-time mother, that presents its own unique challenges.”

Donald wanted Della to stay but as usual, Della did what she wished, so all he could do was try to get her to stay in bed and keep her comfortable as he fetched her whatever she wanted. At least the time between conception to laying is only a fraction of the time compared to laying and hatching.

They began to walk one at a time. The second one, Donald nicknamed him Dewey, took his first steps on the second day. A harrowing experience for Donald as he held his breath, waiting for the boy to stumble and fall. It is different for other species and at times he envies them. Despite the extra work of caring after an utterly helpless creature, there is something appealing behind the idea of knowing you can protect them for a while longer. Not so with these fragile little creatures, up and facing the pain of the world so quickly. No mother to kiss their scrapes and bruises better. They barely had a moment to take their first breath. Some, like ducks and horses, are walking within days, if not minutes. Others, like canaries and dogs, can take weeks. Maybe even months.

He didn’t fall. Not right away, anyway. All children will eventually fall. But that first time he made it into Donald’s arms and he kissed his forehead and told him how proud he was of him as he lifted him into the air triumphantly. So small. So light. Yet somehow Donald had been even smaller than him at that age. Smaller than Della, even. But both he and Della had been undeveloped given their circumstance. Most single-egg twins never survive to their hatching but they had been special. Neither of them had even attempted to walk for over a week, they were still developing even after they hatched.

On the third day, Huey ventured out on his two stubby legs. He did so without coaxing, only his imprinting instinct leading him on. Donald had tucked all three of them in for another long nap, whispering that he would be back momentarily and to not be scared. When he returned from the bathroom, Huey was halfway across the room, looking for his father. More careful and puttering about the task than his little brother. Donald crowed with excitement, praising his abilities, and swung him up for a kiss on his chubby little cheek.

Again, Louie took his time. He finally slid off the bed and toddled after his big brother on the fourth day, after an hour of whining did nothing to persuade the older boy to return to the bed to be with him. He only took the few steps needed to reach where the oldest duckling sat looking through a book, and then the little one laid back down on the floor, his head against his brother’s leg. Totally drained. Donald watched from the rocking chair across the room, Dewey in his arms, suckling from a bottle. He wanted to smile and enjoy the moment, he wanted to celebrate his son’s achievement, but they were already down to only two days of formula remaining.

Donald only had seventeen dollars to his name.

Realistically, he could go to Uncle Scrooge for help. To beg for some money. He thought, even if he was not one hundred percent sure, that he would have helped him out if he was humble enough with his request. At least for the sake of Della's children.

That man though. How could Donald ever look him in the eye again? After the pain he had caused? After the family he ruined? It was his fault that three ducklings were facing a hard, dark future without their mother.  
  
When Donald had learned what Uncle Scrooge had done, he had all but exploded on the old man. He said things to his face he had never dreamed he would say to another living person. Mean things. Downright cruel things. Things he should regret but didn't.

"I wish it was you that died instead."

Someday, he would come to see the error in his way of thinking. To accept that what happened had been just as much Della’s fault as their uncle’s. But that would be far, far in the future with the wisdom that can only come with age and time. Not when the pain of loss was still as fresh and open as a bullet wound straight through his heart, gushing out pain and rage rather than blood.

Besides, Uncle Scrooge, didn’t he know Della? Didn’t he understand how headstrong she could be when she set her mind on something? Didn't he understand what he was doing?

Building a spaceship and leaving it somewhere for her to stumble upon, that’s like leaving a dog alone with a roast and not expecting it to get snatched up. Years later, when Donald was able to forgive him, he would never quite let go of that bitterness over what he did. Forgiveness is not forgetting.

Yet, if he were to put so much blame on Uncle Scrooge, what exempted himself from his own share?

He knew something was wrong the day she disappeared. They rarely kept anything from each other, even secrets like birthday gifts or surprise parties rarely lasted more than a day between the two of them. So when she came to him with bright eyes and clenched hands, all but bouncing on the balls of her feet, he knew something was up.

Foolishly, he had thought it was a surprise for their children. A week, maybe less than a week, and they would be here. It was all that he had thought about for months by then. Their arrival. Their future together. He had assumed it was the same for her. Yes, whatever that secret was, that surprise, it must have had something to do with their hatching. What woman could possibly be approaching so closely to motherhood and think about anything besides finally have the opportunity to hold her children in her arms? 

Della, obviously.

She must have known that he had sensed that there was something wrong. Or maybe she had picked up some sort of premonition. Maybe she knew, somehow, deep inside her bones, that she would never see her brother again. Never lay eyes on her children. Maybe she knew that their parting that day was the last time they would hold each other close.

When she hugged Donald that morning, it had lingered in a way that might have been considered suspect for an average day but he had written it off as hormones. Emotional volatility due to her pending maternal connection. She was just feeling more vulnerable than usual and needed her brother’s touch for a tad longer than usual. He was happy to give her that. The way she dug her fingers in his shoulders, the way she pushed her hips just a bit roughly against him. He had thought at the time, foolishly, that maybe she was trying to tell him that she was ready to accept him fully against her once more. 

When she had kissed him it had been lovingly, soundly, like a lover kisses, but without anything overtly sexual about it. Taking Donald’s face in her hands, she told him how much she loved him. She had run her thumbs down his cheeks as she just looked at him for a long minute.

“I’m just running out for a few, I’ll be right back,” she had lied. Right to his face she had lied. But maybe it wasn’t a lie because maybe she had believed she would be right back. Maybe she had expected to be back by nightfall. Maybe she had expected to be there to see her sons emerge. Of course, she had expected that because why would she have gone knowingly to her own death? “Take care of the boys until I get back. Keep them warm.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out,” she had replied vaguely. He hadn’t wanted to pry.

He wished he had. He wished he had understood what was happening at that moment. What she had been planning, what that tickling sensation at the back of his mind had been. He wished he had, for once in his life, listened to that internal warning telling him that no, everything will not be alright.

But for twenty-five years of his life, that internal warning had been wrong.

Not every fire alarm is a drill.

On the fifth day, Donald ran out of food in the apartment.

His stomach had been growling since morning and he kept drinking hot water to try to stave off the hunger but it just sent him on frequent bathroom trips instead. He had spent half the day checking his phone, hoping for a call from one of the places he had applied to, but it remained as eerily silent as an old graveyard.

At about two, he tried calling the number on the back of his debit card, just to make sure it was working. When the automated message picked up, asking him to press one for English, or two for Spanish, he hung up the phone with a defeated sigh.

There was a convenience store only a couple of blocks away but he was too afraid of leaving the boys alone for that long and he couldn’t afford a stroller to take them along, so he gathered up what change he could find lying around, and ventured down there flights of stairs to the vending machine in the apartment building’s laundry room.

Even at ten at night, all the laundry machines were running. The basement air was hot and damp, heavy feeling, laced with the scent of too many competing detergent scents. The little white plaque beneath the bag of Cheez-Its read eighty-five cents. Donald had dug out seventy-five cents worth of change from his dirty clothing.

"You stupid thing!" Donald spit out before he could help himself. He banged his fist hard against the plexiglass several times, pulling back before the stinging ache of his bruised bones began to set in. He clutched the throbbing appendage to his chest as he continued to cuss under his breath.

Ten cents. He was ten cents away from just being able to get something into his stomach. There was other snacks available for purchase in the vending machine, snacks he could afford, but Starbursts or gum wouldn't help with the growling in his stomach. If anything, the sugar and acid would just eat away at his insides, leaving him queasy and feeling even more unsatisfied.

“How did I ever think I could do this in my own,” he muttered to himself, resting his forehead against the glass of the machine. His eyes stung. “I can’t even afford a packet of crackers for dinner.”

“Tricks that bad?” A nasally female voice came from his side, startling him. Donald jumped nearly a foot in the air and turned with his heart in his throat to see a female goose almost hidden behind one of the basement’s concrete pillars. She appeared to be folding laundry, setting it neatly into a white laundry basket as she pulled each piece from the nearby dryer.

“Tricks?” Donald gets out.

“You are a bit older than the normal boys around here,” the woman acknowledged around the cigarette hanging from between her lips. Her platinum blond hair was exposing far too much dark root to be considered glamorous and she was for some reason in full makeup, albeit it gaudy makeup, while wearing a pair of unflattering sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. “Usually only get the strung-out teens staying here.”

“I, what?” Donald stammered, eyes on the end of the long, gray ash hanging precariously over her newly washed clothing.

“Which room are you in?”

“Three fourteen.”

“Oh!” She perked up at this, eyes brightening. She approached him from around the pillar, holding what appeared to be a halter top in one hand. “We’re neighbors! I’m three sixteen. Excuse the get up, I ran outta clothes. Name’s Honey.”

When she leaned over to shake his hand, Donald took it, numbly, still not sure what was going on.The baggy arm of the sweatshirt swung along with the motion of her hand. Her nails were long and painted blood red. Sharp as knives.

“Donald,” he said, barely remembering his manners. He pulled his hand back, vaguely scared of those nails piercing his flesh.

“You’re the one with the kids, right?” Honey asked, returning to her laundry. She was now holding up a pair of lacy red panties when she asked this and Donald, noticing them, averted his eyes in embarrassment. The same shade as her painted nails. “I’ve heard them crying.”

“Yeah, they’re my…” Donald paused for a moment, wondering what to call them. It was as if the woman knew him or his circumstance. Yet what if things changed years down the line? He couldn’t imagine it happening but they were neighbors, maybe they’d end up best friends for all he knew, how would he explain everything then? Or maybe she'd end up being some crazy bitch that hunted him down because she thought he stole her favorite panties and report him to his future boss. Best to keep up the charade right from the beginning. The stranger would be the first one to hear his lie. Better a stranger than a friend, at least. “Nephews. They’re my nephews. But their mother passed so they just have me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the young woman said, oddly sincere in her tone of voice. She lowered what appeared to be a matching bra to the previous red panties. “That must be difficult. I think you might be the only callboy in the building with children. I know a few of the girls have them but I don’t think there are any babies, currently.”

“Callboy?” Donald gawked, focusing on the one glaring word that stood out in the stream that had just come from her mouth. “You think I’m a prostitute?”

“Well, you don’t have to look so horrified,” Honey rolled her eyes at him. “Sweetie, I’m sorry if I read you wrong, but most of us aren’t exactly here because we’re riding a lucky streak. Unless you have tracks in your arm, you probably live here because management turns a blind eye to some of the other illicit activities. That’s all. I meant no offense.”

“I’m sorry,” Donald gushed out his own apology, realizing how insulting he probably just came off. He had spoken before he had time to think. The girl, Honey…even her name was a hint. She was obviously a prostitute. She had just assumed he was like her. As appalled as he felt over the idea of being mistaken as one, he didn't want to offend. “I meant no disrespect towards women like you. But I, I’m not like that. I never could be. Sex for me is something special. I’ve never been with somebody I wasn’t in love with and I can’t imagine just…giving myself away like that.”

“Well I don’t give it away, I charge a fair price.” She picked up her laundry basket of folded clothes and leaned it against a voluptuous hip, frowning at him. Then she sighed, her face softening. “Listen, I have a client dropping by in five, so I need to get back up to my room. But I have this regular coming by at eleven. This older guy. He likes it when people watch. Most of the others don’t like to do it because he cheaps out on the pay, but if you need some quick cash…”

Some quick cash...

“I…I need to get back to the kids,” Donald stuttered, turning on his heels. He could hear the blood in his ears as anxiety took over his body. And revulsion. And temptation. Her words were already playing again in his head as he took the stairs two at a time. She wasn't wrong. He was in need of some quick cash, he couldn't even afford to feed his own children. But he could never...

“Think about it,” she called out after him. “If you change your mind, you know my number! Three sixteen!”

The kids were still asleep when he rushed back through the door empty-handed. His heart beating hard in his chest, Donald resisted the urge to slam the door behind him. Waking up the boys wouldn't help anything. Even if he could do with something warm and comforting in his arms right now. It took all his will and effort to click it quietly shut and twist the lock with shaking hands.

All three of them were curled up together exactly where he had left them, beneath the soft glow of the nightlight that had once hung in Donald's own bedroom as a child. A little boat with a crescent moon overhead. It used to play the sound of ocean waves but that feature had ceased to work years ago. At least the light was still functional.

Not knowing what else to do, too riled up from the conversation and feeling oddly dirty from his brief time in the basement, Donald walked into the grimy bathroom and turned on the water. He continued to replay the conversation in his head as he held his hand beneath the spray of the showerhead, waiting for the warm water that never came.

"Who used up the hot water this late," he sighed, sliding down against the bathroom wall. The tiles below him were cold and sharp, too coarse to be considered acceptable for inside use. Outdoors tiles, most likely, probably bought on sale by the owner. They bit into his thighs as he leaned back against the bathroom wall, letting his head fall back with a soft thud. The overhead light flickered at the impact but at least it didn't go out. "Doesn't a guy at least deserve a hot shower?"

The apartment was a studio. There was no bedroom to lock himself away in, no kitchen to sit down at the table and contemplate over. The only place for him to be alone was in the tiny bathroom that was barely large enough to fit a sink, toilet, and tub. So he sat there for a good long while, growing colder and colder, trying to convince himself to just go to bed but feeling like joining his own sons right now would be like intruding into their little world of warmth and comfort in each other's arms. He sat on the floor until his fingers began to go number.

At ten fifty, Donald knocked on the door of room three sixteen and waited, anxiously ringing his cold, tingling hands as the footsteps inside approached.

"You said I only have to watch, right?"

**Author's Note:**

> (I know Huey is actually only six seconds older than Louie, and like, we saw the pic of Donald teaching Dewey how to walk on that mattress, but my fic, my choice)


End file.
